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Minyan Man wrote:
Ann, could you tell by his lesson or the questions asked if he is a TBM?
That is strange.
It’s not a term I even have a definition for, but I’d describe him as a super-nice and very orthodox. I realized as it unfolded that it would be hard to express my true thoughts.Along those lines, today’s speaker quoted Elder Wirthlin:
Quote:The church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The Church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to return to our Heavenly Father.
The theme of the meeting was kindness. Another speaker talked about a young home teacher he observed being kind to an ancient woman he visited. She’d had foot surgery and was worried about coming to church in tennis shoes, so he wore his sneakers to church until she could get back in the shoes she liked.
A RM talked today. He went to Germany. Before his mission he was known for perfect attendance at Seminary, perfect grades, reading his scriptures daily, and exuding a certain attitude that he and his family were just a little better than others because of it. He talked about struggling on his mission and trying to do everything perfectly right every time. He talked about reading about imperfect people in the scriptures and how their imperfections became strengths. He talked about learning valuable lessons from refugees and learning to communicate with people on a spiritual level.
His personal growth are evident, obvious, and a very positive thing.
Church was interesting today. The Ward Exec Sec is planning the Teachers Council and seems left to flounder. I helped him today to get it organized, as my role was just to show up and facilitate. A woman I used to help a lot pulled me aside and told me about her life these last three years I have been attending a different Ward. She had tears at certain points as she reflected on things I had done for her — that I’d forgotten. Very appreciative….that was nice. Second time that has happened to me in the last couple months. She had similar problems that my daughter did with bullying in our Ward,and had to make the decision to stay or leave the Ward.
Priesthood meeting with the SP teaching about Pride. I always get frustrated in pride lessons because pride is a topic like “Communication” in business. It is very broad, and would be better treated if people were able to break it down into its facets. Otherwise, the topic is “all over the map”. I felt like sticking up my hand and sharing that I wish someone would figure out the subcategories of pride so we could have a focused discussion. But that of course, is too academic and would be perceived as criticism of the teacher. So I sat in silence.
Sacrament meeting was the SP and BP talking again. I made good headway reading about statistics for my PhD during that period.
A major achievement was a cleanliness issue in my home — I have helped my son keep his room in near perfect order for a month now, and it makes going to church so much easier. He can find his shoes, pants, shirt and tie very easily. This sounds like a small thing, but it was a major source of frustration for the family, and my son — who would often use the lack of organization to excuse himself from going to church. As someone who has had to accept a much lower level of cleanliness in our house than I am comfortable with, the fact that this milestone has been achieved, and regular benefits in helping my son get to church without resistance is a huge boon for me right now.
The entire three-hour block of meetings today probably was the best I have experienced in a long time. The first sacrament speaker was a young woman (high school senior this fall) who went to Samoa this summer for three weeks to help build a house as part of a service opportunity developed by members of the Church. It was an incredible talk, and she ended it by haltingly reading her testimony translated into Samoan. It was beautiful. I wish everyone in the Church could have heard it.
The second speaker talked about family history work, and I almost tuned her out at the beginning, but it was mostly wonderful stories of ancestors – and she mentioned explicitly how people of all faiths have served God throughout history and given us legacies that are worth discovering and honoring.
The final speaker was the only down note to the entire day: a high councilor who is a wonderful, caring man who spoke ten minutes past the scheduled end of the meeting – and whose message didn’t resonate much with me. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t do anything for me – and my soapbox about respecting others in their callings during the second hour made it hard for me not to try to send the subliminal message to stop talking so the next meetings could start.
The second hour was our Teaching Council meeting – and it was excellent. There was an exceptional discussion among the participants (including that High Councilor), and I even got to mention the need for teachers to keep track of the clock and make sure classes ended on time. (He is a good man, and he got my message, as he mentioned it afterward. We had a chance to talk quietly about the need for High Councilors to prepare 40 minute talks but give 3 minute talks, if necessary. Seriously, he is a good man.)
The HPG lesson was about hastening family history and temple work, but the teacher made it a very good discussion. He and I also got to talk about how it’s okay to take it all symbolically and still believe it is important for us to make the generational connections and prove our sincere love for our kindred dead through physical actions like ordinances.
It was a good day for me.
Minyan Man wrote:After thinking about this for a while, I sent an email to my HP Group Leader & told him what I thought.
I feel better now. I will inform you about what he says.
I heard back from my HPGL & he thought it was a good idea. I heard from the teacher (who’s a friend). He said no one told him that they
wanted to do anything about my suggestions so, today they went on with the next lesson. I’m convinced from my own experiences, my ward
really doesn’t want to discuss the details only the overview (30000 ft level).
Now I don’t feel better.
Oh well, I tried. I probably won’t do it again.
My husband passed the sacrament today… wearing a yellow shirt. And I gave a guest presentation on Queen Esther in primary today. They’ve been doing a monthly series on Scripture Heroes, and asked me to come and do a female scripture character of my choice. I had a lot of fun with it.
That makes up for having to sit through Pioneer Day talks!
I posted this in another thread, but I think it fits here even better. I was visiting another ward that was sending off a missionary. The speaker before the missionary to be talked a bit about the handcarts, but quickly turned it into talking about how the 1,500 people in Quincy took on >5,000 Mormons when they were kicked out of Missouri and how that parallels the plight of the refugees now. He also seemed to make a quick point in passing that not everyone that was part of the willie and martin companies of handcarts stayed with the church and that some even left the church. I found it encouraging.
Joni – A yellow shirt and Queen Esther. Hooray. No dying there. :clap: LH – A trickle of water on the hardened soil of legacy. That is beautiful. Glad you were there to hear it.
:thumbup: I am super frustrated today because of a talk I heard in Sacrament Meeting, and when I get this frustrated, the frustration invariably morphs into guilt — (i.e. I’m a bad person; I shouldn’t feel this way). The speakers were an Area Presidency and his wife. The Seventy is the son of a couple in our ward. I suspect that’s how we came to have them speak to us. In a week, they will be returning to Tokyo, where they preside over several Asian countries, including Japan, Korea and a number of small Micronesian islands. First, his wife spoke. Her talk was about what an incredible man her husband is. She said she was sure we were all wondering what it took for a man to be called as a General Authority, so that’s what she spoke on. Okay. I kind of shrugged it off, figuring his talk would be better. And it started out being really good. He told us a lot about how the Church is growing over in that part of the world. He spoke about the first stake that was organized over there and made a point of mentioning the man who was called to be the first stake president. He was a very poor fisherman who presided over his first stake conference wearing a stained white shirt, a pair of poorly-fitting pants and no shoes or socks. I was really touched by how he went on and on about what a wonderful, humble man this new stake president was. He said they are dear, dear friends. Well, I was starting to feel really good about his message. And then he changed direction. He started in on the amount of wickedness in the world and said how fortunate we are to be led by a prophet of God. Then he started talking about when he was called as a bishop for the first time, at the age of 30 (he made a point of mentioning how young he was, which although it kind of bugged me, I let slide). He and his wife were living in Hawaii at the time. He said that nobody wears suits in Hawaii and that it’s hard to find a store that even sells them. Well, when he was called as bishop, he and his wife went to buy him a new suit. He found one that he liked and tried it on. His wife told him he looked absolutely great in it. He was ready to buy it when he noticed that it had three buttons. He said, “I’d never seen President Hinckley in a suit with three buttons, and I thought, ‘Oh dear! Would President Hinckley wear a suit like this? Probably not. I’d better choose something different.'” Well, he bought a different suit, only to see a picture of President Hinckley in a suit with three buttons a short while later, at which time he went back and bought the suit he’d first wanted to buy.
I don’t know why this little story bothered me so much, but it really did. Is this really what people think it means to “follow the prophet”? This struck me as such a self-righteous action. Maybe I’m just way, way more critical than I should be, but honestly, it just really rubbed me the wrong way. Unfortunately, that’s probably the only part of his talk I’ll end up remembering, which is kind of sad. I’d really appreciate hearing everybody’s input. If I misjudged this man and need to be put in my place, tell me.
Today was… kind of a bloodbath. The politics in my ward are very, very nasty. I have seen good families hurt to the point where they are willing to put their house on the market and move (even at a loss) just to get out of this ward. Our bishop spoke today in SM. I love/hate his talks. He’s generally a good and engaging speaker, but sometimes he repeats the same stories over and over (somewhat like Pres. Monson used to) and he can pontificate with the best of them. Anyway, his topic today was including everyone. He did an admirable job, using Paul (Saul) as an example of someone you would least expect to show up on a Sunday but there he was. Despite any knowledge the Christians might have had about his prior atrocities, he was then one of them. He did tell a couple of his stories, but all in all it was a good talk. It was actually a fairly timely thing for our ward but I can’t go into detail other than to say that there are many in the ward who wonder how a specific person was recently baptized (and those that wonder include the bishop and myself). However, this individual is now part of our ward for better or for worse and we have been asked love one another. ‘Nuf said. I leave it at that because the other two hours went downhill.
DarkJedi wrote:I leave it at that because the other two hours went downhill.
The last two hours went really well for me. I came home right after Sacrament Meeting.
Best smack down at church in a long time. 3rd hour was combined and as the Bishopric member who was conducting said “it’s a bits and pieces day.” We covered a bunch of non-connected topics. One topic we did cover was the youth feeling discouraged. Lots of adult comments were made but one man in particular went on a rampage of youth losing their testimonies by 18. I was ready to respond when our RS Pres. (who I consider pretty TBM) swung around and gave him a verbal dress down. She called him out for judging youth. She said testimonies can take years to gain and a lifetime to nourish. He had insinuated that lots of youth are church fakers. She gave him what for for that, too. Right after her response the other Bishopric member jumped in and said, “When I read my journal from those years, I sound just like these kids. It’s super tough to be a teen.” He even shared a story of a leader chewing him out because he was almost late with the sacrament bread.
The other stuff we talked about paled in comparison to those 10 minutes.
SM – one of the best I’ve attended in a long time! All the speakers focused on living a gospel principle, it was great. SS – not so great. It was the Korihor lesson. I don’t think there are many
goodways to do that lesson. Towards the end someone issued a smack down comment. I was 😯 .PH/RS – It was more administrative (discussing policies) than anything.
:yawn: I was helping my kids with their puzzle books when I took note of the speaker delivering a hagiography about JS. She said that he was so amazing and that she just loved, loved, loved him. She said that to be in his presence would just be so awe inspiring. She said that he taught us how to pray. (“Didn’t Jesus teach us how to pray?” I wondered to myself.) She said that she felt a kinship to him because she is compared to him in her patriarchal blessing – then she backtracked and said “not that I compare to JS, he was so amazing and I am such a failure, but in my patriarchal blessing it said that we both have power in the boldness of our youth.” She said that even after all that he accomplished when you read his writings you can tell how absolutely humble he was. I was smiling with such a devilish twinkle in my eye. I wondered how much she might have possibly read about JS or if she was just giving us a description of the best possible person that she could imagine.
OTOH, I imagine that she was asked to talk about JS but didn’t actually know very much and just had to sort of make things up on the spot. That’s what you get sometimes when you have random people from the congregation speak on assigned topics.
3rd hour the bishopric counselor literally stalled for time until we ran out of things to talk about. “Are you sure that nobody has any additional missionary experiences to talk about?” Then Bishop came in about 20 minutes late (he had been talking to the youth about the law of chastity) and gave what appeared to be an unprepared lesson on personal revelation. Sometimes it really seems like there is minimal effort ensure a quality meeting and rather that we are all just dutifully killing time until the meeting ends.
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